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What would RTH do?

That is the question.

If I were in a highschool yearbook, they would vote me most likely to die of a lynch mob. That does not prevent me from opening my mouth and serving a warm hearty cup of STFU to people who deserve it. My dark scathing humor will leave no matter of existence untouched. My innocence will touch your soul.

Welcome to a warped world turned inside out and upside down. All sorts of discretion advised.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

The Silver Lining

All the news around India lately has centered around the rape. My American friends often ask me "what the fuck is going on in India?". I have a hard time explaining the culture of misogyny and abuse of women. It chokes and embitters me. Words fail me. I love my home country, but the recent news of violence, rape and abuse make me loathe my roots and feel ashamed to be an Indian.

In my previous blog post I shared my experiences as a woman in India. I talked about the leering, groping and sexual harassment in the streets. But there is also another side to India. One of my friends on twitter sent me a link to a beautiful blog post that narrates anecdotes of this other side. The part of India where men genuinely care for women, respect them and protect them. There is a part of India where you get random acts of kindness and friendly gestures from total strangers. I should know. I've met these kind strangers and good men.

Every dark cloud has a silver lining. There is a light at the end of every tunnel. I am hopeful, that someday India can change. I believe in the few good people and their ability to make a difference. For now read this blog post and smile, for there is hope.

It was probably around now, the season, classes had thin attendance
and the New Year had not yet guilt-kicked-in with its resolutions. We
were 20 and quite drunk. It was the middle of the day, the four of us
girls had bunked college and gone to Leopold’s in Colaba. We didn’t
notice the table next to us. Four men, probably in their thirties,
leery, not talking to each other. Some of us were smoking those thin,
menthol cigarettes like newbies, being very cool. One of the men at the
next table leaned towards us and asked if they could borrow our lighter.
We thought nothing of it, but at that instant, a waiter was at our
side, standing between our table and their’s, handing the man a
matchbox.

After that, we began to notice. Whether late at night, or during the
day, whether we were drunk on beer or club sandwiches, the staff at our
Leo’s was always on the lookout for us. Waiting till we piled into a
cab, watching, hawkeyed for any unnecessary enthusiasm from young men in
groups without women while we danced or sat at the table in paroxysms
of laughter.

We took it for granted.

I lived alone in my parents’ flat from the time I was 17. I biked to
work for my first job at the Asian Age, in a little hellhole area of
Mumbai, in lower-Lower Parel. We worked insane hours. I’d ride back to
Bandra, at 1 in the morning, no helmet, very obviously a girl. I never
felt unsafe.

Taking a cab late at night from near Haji Ali, the cabbie was
uncharacteristically young. My mother had a litany of ‘safe practices’.
One was, “choose an older cabbie if you can” (her concern was mostly
about the speed at which young men drove, such was the time) but that
night, there was only this young one. At Worli, the streets were
deserted and out of nowhere a white van packed with screaming, drunk,
men in their early twenties, began to drive alongside. They spied me,
alone in the cab and began to make lewd gestures. They opened the door
of the van at the signal. I saw the cabbie look at them and thought,
‘that’s it, this is how it’s going to end’. And then my cabbie hit the
gas, broke the signal and sped off like his life depended on it. Like our lives
depended on it. The van gave chase but eventually trailed off. I paid
him outside my house and said ‘thank you’. He just nodded. We both knew
what had happened and what had been averted.

On a bus, with my friend R, from whom I learned “there’s always a
stone on the road to throw at a creep”, we watched a young girl being
harassed by a man for ten minutes. Finally, it was too much. R, 5’8” and
with our monsoon de-rigeur, a large black umbrella, tapped the man on
the shoulder and said she’d get the conductor to throw him off the bus.
He turned around and said, “but what am I doing?” So she looked at the
girl, who surprised us all, (the entire bus was now staring at R) by
saying “He wasn’t doing anything.” It was super embarrassing and weird.
The girl, head bent, shuffled to the back of the bus but the conductor
stared the man down and R and I shook our fists at him. He got off at
the next stop in a hurry.

In a crowded bus, coming home, I finally got a seat next to a
scrawny, unkempt looking young chap. Instinctively, I edged away from
him only to find that one of the men standing in the aisle was using my
shoulder to grind himself against. I fought back tears. I had no energy
to get into an argument that day. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed
that the guy sitting next to me was staring at me. I turned on him in
hatred, eyes wide with rage and he just said quietly, ‘Sister, let me
sit on the outside.’ So we traded places. And as I looked out of the
window, safe from harm, I let myself cry.

For every hideous incident of molestation, most women here will have a
story that is heartening. In scruffy bars, stranded on highways because
of a wrong turn, in an auto at 4 am, in the middle of Kamathipura,
Nagpada, Bombay Central, Dadar… there is always a counter to the story
of monstrous men. Stories of brave, kind strangers and the men and women
you know.

Things have changed, yes, but nothing is irrevocable.

There’s creepy, awful, evil, misogynistic, opportunistic, cowardly,
hateful, potential rapists in every city, in every place. What I have
loved about Bombay, is that the good guys (and girls) still seem to
outnumber the assholes. And that is why there’s hope for us yet.

About Me

I make my own God and destroy them, I am not a pagan or atheist but a new age theologist. I am a rebellious conformist. I stand for equal opportunity hatred. I am omnisexual, infallible and one with the force.